Early accounting: The Tally and checkerboard

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The Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 16, No. 2 December 1989
W. T. Baxter THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
EARLY ACCOUNTING: THE TALLY AND CHECKERBOARD
Abstract: How could our ancestors do accounting while they were still illiterate and had no paper? The answer is that they used the tally and the checkerboard. In medieval Europe, the tally was normally a short stick on which notches were cut to represent numbers; different number units could be shown by notches of different sizes. The two parties to a deal could get a fraud-proof record by splitting the tally into matching "foil" and "stock" (hence our "stock market"). Counting was done by moving counters onto and off a surface ruled like a chess-board. These devices were cen-tral to medieval finance, e.g., the English exchequer issued stocks like bills of exchange. The exchequer clung to tallies long after they had become obsolete; but in 1834 it decided to destroy its tallies by burning them, and the resulting blaze destroyed Parliament too.
TYPES OF TALLY
History shows us (or so historians claim) how mankind once coped with conditions that now seem impossibly adverse. Cer-tainly this is true of accounting history. It shows how accounts could be kept when paper was still unknown or costly, coins were scarce and bad, and most men were illiterate.
In these straits, our ancestors made good use of two devices. To record numbers, they cut notches on tallies. To calculate, they used the abacus, notably in its form of the checkerboard.
Meanings of "Tally"
The word "tally" suggests various things:
(1) A simple record of numbers, such as notches on a stick or chalk marks on a slate.
(2) An object divided into two interlocking bits, thus giving proof of identity, e.g. a split seal or die.
(3) A combination of (1) and (2), such as a stick that is first notched to show e.g. the number of £'s lent by A to B, and then is split to give both A and B a record.
I have received much help from M. T. Clanchy and A. Grandell. I am grate-ful also to: G. de Ste. Croix and D. Wormell (classical references); G. Tegner (Scandinavia); D. Forrester and M. Stevelinck (France); F. E. L. Carter and C. Coleman (England).